updated 06:50 am EDT, Fri April 6, 2012

HTC's profits continue to nosedive

HTC's Q1 2012 unaudited results are in (pdf) and they don't make pleasant reading. The company has revealed that its profits have slumped a massive 70 percent year-over-year on revenues down 35 percent. The result continues a downward trend that started in the second half of 2011 as the once leading Android smartphone vendor bled sales, largely due to the popularity of Samsung's 2011 Galaxy line-up.

HTC's Q4 2011 nosedived by 25 percent and marked the first time the company had recorded negative growth in the previous two years. At the time analysts suggested that its product line had become overly complex and needed to be rationalized. It also did not have a substantive answer to Samsung's Galaxy S II model, which has led to Samsung recording record profits. Worse, as the company tried to trim the prices of its models to remain competitive without a 'halo' phone to go head-to-head with the Samsung Galaxy S II, the drop in its profit margins significantly outstripped its drop in revenue for the most recent quarter.

Its new line-up of HTC One devices, led by the HTC One X, the One S and the One V were developed specifically to address its declining sales. The have been well-received and feature high-end hardware including slim unibody designs in either polycarbonate or anodized aluminum. Top-of-the-line processors in the NVIDIA Tegra 3 or the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 also power the new devices. The company has also tried to further differentiate its line of smartphones with the addition of Beats Audio processing. [viaThe Next Web]